Just another dent in the damage…

There seems to be a lot of stuff flying around at the moment about what the Noughties will be remembered for. What has happened in the last decade that will make it stand out from other decades? Well…

In general:

9/11?
The ‘War on Terror’ (i.e. two unjustified unending wars)?
America’s first black President?
Iran’s disputed elections?
The Large Hadron Collider?
The horrific Mumbai terror attacks?
The death of Michael Jackson?
Global warming?
Google?
The Indian Ocean tsunami?
Swine flu?

(notice a theme?)

Personally:

A whole load a shit and not so much shit.

Last time I got hooked on Monitter was during the Mumbai attacks last November when my need for real time information got so intense that it became difficult to deattach my eyes from the computer screen. This time it’s the Iran elections (#iranelections) that have really got me. Sat here feeling so overwhelmed and helpless I really have found the evidence needed to prove the usefulness of Twitter.

Twitter has in fact been so useful to Iranians tweeting the ‘revolution’ that scheduled maintenance was put back a day to keep communication open. My only criticism over the last couple of days is the difficulty to sieve through the millions of uninformative re-tweets and misinformation to actually get to the heart of what I want to know – what is happening right now!

Below are some links I’ve found useful over the last couple of days:

• For some great Twitter feeds see: persiankiwi/StopAhmadi/mousavi1388 and Change for Iran;
• For good Twitter round-up tools see: Twazzup and PicFog for images;
• For a round up of the larger context of the Iranian elections see: Revolutionary Flowerpot;
• For a collection of some amazing photographs see: Mousavi1388/TheStyx/Boston’s Big Picture and The Guardian;
• For some general Fisking see: Iran Erupts/Ahamdinejad whips crowd/Iran’s day of destiny and Fear has gone;
• For a bit about elections and democracy see: Christopher Hitchens;
• For some rally footage the best place was always going to be YouTube: BBC Persian/a brave female Iranian kicks police and 15th June crowds;
• For some Guardian Analysis see: election statistics and shots fired;
• For some live tweeting I kept up with Andrew Sullivan’s commentary at: The Daily Dish;
• For some expert analysis from Gary Sick and Karim Sadjadpour see: PBS;
• As always Channel 4 News have been right on! See: Lindsey Hilsum’s blog (she is the international editor for Channel 4 News and is currently reporting from Iran) esp. ‘A day in Iran.‘;
• Good blogs include: For a democratic secular Iran (he was also on Channel 4 News and the BBC)/The Huffington Post and The Lede blog;
• And also see the Channel 4 news broadcasts including nation in turmoil and violence at protest.